When a client or user (waiting party) tries to reach a live agent at a large company or service center (queuing party), nowadays it is very likely that he or she will be put “on hold” before being connected to human (referred to as “live agent” in this disclosure). Being put in a hold queue has become a common frustration of everyday life. The phrase “waiting party” is used in this disclosure to collectively refer to the user, client, or the calling party or the on-hold party. The “queuing party” is used collectively to indicate the company or service center which could also be called the holding party which is different from the on-hold party.
A hold queue at a queuing party is managed by a Queuing Calling System (QCS), typically an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system combined with an ACD (Automatic Call Distributor) system. The hold queue is an unfortunate artifact, stemming from the way the phone system was designed and is a sub-optimal solution for both parties. For the waiting party, hold-time means that it is tied to his or her phone (for an unknown period of time), unable to pursue other activities, make other calls, and potentially incurring per-minute costs. For the queuing party, hold-time results in customer frustration and costs money via the extra infrastructure required to keep phone lines open.
Over the years, a variety of prior art approaches have been proposed to eliminate hold-time.
By way of further example, these systems allow the waiting party to leave the phone and receive an audio or visual alert when a live agent is available. The main flaw in such a system is that the phone line is still held engaged, meaning that the phone cannot be used for another call, and that any applicable call charges are still incurred. Furthermore, as these systems may only be embodied as additional or peripheral hardware attached to a particular phone, they will not be available if the waiting party is at another phone. One example of this prior art approach is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 3,961,142.
Queuing Party Call-Back Systems
These systems are installed at the queuing party. When no live agents are available to handle a call, the waiting party hears a message explaining that all agents are busy and asking for his phone number. When a live agent is available, a component of the QCS dials the waiting party at the number he designated and connects him to the live agent. Examples of this prior art approach are presented in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,627,884; 6,563,921 and 6,754,334.
One flaw in this system is that the waiting party has to trust that the queuing party will honor the promise to call back (and honor his position in the queue, versus other callers who remained on-hold). An additional flaw is that the waiting party may not be willing to give out his phone number. Adoption of this system has been further hindered by the fact that queuing parties are often unwilling to incur the charges of calling back. A variant of this system allows the waiting party to make a request for a call-back through an online interface (e.g. a web page), but the same flaws are still present. Examples of this prior art approach are presented in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,436,967; 5,185,782 and 5,155,761.
Third Party Call-Back Systems
This is a variant of approach number 2 discussed above, where the call-back approach is handled by a third party. In such a system, the waiting party is represented to the QCS by an intermediary system sometimes called the Originating Communication System (OCS). The two communication systems negotiate how to handle the hold situation. The OCS may be deployed and operated by the carrier, the queuing party itself or a neutral third party. In all cases, the primary flaw is that the QCS has to be aware and configured to negotiate with the OCS. Thus, there is a definite added cost to the queuing party. Since there is a large variety of hardware and software used for the QCS, the integration with the OCS is not trivial. Thus, adoption of this system will continue to be very slow. One example of this prior art approach is presented in U.S. Pat. No. 6,141,328.
A better solution would be for some sort of signaling system to exist whereby a waiting party could request attention from a live agent, and then receive a signal from the QCS when the live agent is present. Unfortunately, no standard exists for such a signaling system. Hence, hold-time is not likely to disappear anytime soon.
It is therefore desirable to provide a communication system and method which allows the user (the waiting party) to reach a live agent at a particular company or service center (the queuing party) without waiting in a hold queue.